Earlier this week, TSN released their all-time Toronto Maple Leafs team via Twitter and the roster has sparked a lot of controversy within the hockey community.
This is part of the network’s ‘All-Time 7’ project where they list the all-time roster of each Canadian Team, and the criteria they have put together for player eligibility is far too specific in order to make a list that is as objective as possible.
The criteria goes as follows (Courtesy, TSN):
Player Criteria
- Team: two goalies, six defensemen, 12 forwards and one foundational player
- Members must have played at least 225 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs
- At least one member of the all-time team must be from the 2019-20 Maple Leafs
- Players are slotted in positions they played with the Maple Leafs
- One line must be comprised of defensive standouts, aka a checking line
- One pair must be comprised of suffocating defenders, aka a shutdown pair
- Lines and pairs are put together because they fit together, not because they are necessarily the first, second and third best at their positions
- Foundational players are defined as players part of the fabric – the DNA – of a franchise
- Last cuts by position are exactly as advertised, the players who just missed selection to the all-time team
I agree that the period of time you spend with the team should be a large factor in the placement of players for an all-time team, but putting a specific number of games on it can cause complications, where those factors should be indirectly applied and appreciated by fans without making it a necessity.